Dear Malls,
A part of the expat life in RAK that I have learned to embrace is the mall. Life revolves around the mall. There you find groceries, clothing, overzealous perfume sellers, a place to eat dinner, car rentals, a friend at Starbucks, and the temperature at a cool 20 degrees celsius no matter the fiery furnace you walked through outside to get there.
A natural-born mall rat, I took to this way of life like medicine with the sick. Breezing through H&M, spritzing myself with every tester in Bath and Body Works until I smelled like the girl’s locker room after 7th grade gym class, and buying a loaf of bread were all precursors to paying my monthly car-rental fee at the office on the second floor.
But my car rental-mall was not the same as the grocery store mall which was not the same as my particular bank’s ATM Mall. I searched for the mall that had it all, but found it did not exist.
Like members of a class group project forcibly drawn together, even the least of these malls was needed to make the grade and get on with the business of living in this place.
I learned to understand the role each mall had to play in my life. And since each group members’ name is on the final project no matter the effort given, here is a classification of malls if they were members of a group project.
The One With Big Promises
This mall is like a student who presents with confidence. In my high school days, this meant they had a Motorola Razr cellphone, unlimited texting, and an in-ground pool. Naturally, he has a wide platform. Promises are made and hopes are high as the volume in his headphones on his iPod Nano. This mall dazzles. It has separate floors dedicated to electronics, home goods, shoes, designer children’s clothes, and the nation of China. You can ice skate after your plastic surgery consultation or teeth cleaning. The options are limitless but your patience as you drive up and down an eight story parking structure searching for a spot is not. By the end of an hour every spot feels like it’s the last flight out of Vietnam.
This mall is an occasional visit for those goods and services that are exclusively Motorola-Razr-level sophisticated, but your expectations have to be adjusted. You will have to endure the equivalent of your group mate explaining the superiority of T9 texting on a Razr compared to your flip phone.
The One With Only Unhelpful Suggestions
Some are blessed with the ability to derail any group planning session with a succession of progressively worse ideas. This mall is like the student who wants to present your project through an original soliloquy or in full mime. It has a store dedicated to fur coats. It has seven stores dedicated to selling single encased roses. Every so often, one idea comes through. By virtue of being the only place I can find an ATM for my bank in a city operating on cash, this mall stays relevant.
The One Who is Nearly Comatose
Is this group member even alive? You saw the slightest wiggle of a finger at one point, but his head has been down for most of this meeting. This group-member is the equivalent of the mall that has 37,000㎡ of space but only 3 stores are open. It is a mystery how they can keep the lights on. But then, like the Queen of the Night, a great white bloom appears perennially. The promise of a Mexican restaurant, the only one in town, draws you in. You’re satisfied if not just satiated with the Lebanese take on Tex-Mex, and they put a picture of you and friends’ in sombreros on the wall. This mall will live.
Another weekend you walk past the empty storefronts only to find the Mexican restaurant has just become another one. Disappointment has a name, and it’s El Chico. What will keep this mall in rotation is the hope of a sudden burst of life, especially after you’ve endured the suggestions of the other group members.
The One Who Does Most of the Work
Inevitably, there is that one student who will complete the Powerpoint, give an accurate works cited page, and be stingingly honest on the after project peer review; this is the one who does most of the work. Malls are the same. This one is not gold-plated, there is no snow slope for skiing, and there are definitely no Mexican restaurants. But what does it have–Ease of parking, a grocery store near the main entrance, random American imports that always delight, a movie theater, stores that are open, and, in full transparency, a McDonald’s–will get 90% of the job done. You will eat a lot of McDonald’s french fries. This will sustain much of your mall activity for years.
The expat who does well knows what to expect from her malls. She finds the balance between each one’s function in her life. Achieve mall symbiosis and you’ll know peace and order, a pearl of great price in the expat economy. And though students have groaned every time I have assigned a group project, there are just some assignments in life that require a group, even if one of them is half-dead.
Busy Nothings 